Security is one of those things that no one wants to think about, but we all need to be paying attention to. Moving around today’s internet requires more than the short password you’ve been using since 1998, and no, adding a capital letter at the beginning probably isn’t enough. To really be safe, you need strong passwords and extra layers of authentication when logging in to sites—and for most people, you’ll need apps to help you keep track of it all. Here’s our primer.

The best ways to keep your passwords safe

We’ve worked hard over the past half-decade making domain registration as easy as possible, but one pain point we often encounter is password memorization. The vast majority of our customers simply don’t need to interact with us very often, and what seems like a strong, easily remembered password could be completely alien when domain renewals come around a year later. But there are solutions for this very problem—all you need is a solid password manager.

The concept is straightforward: You sign up for a service that generates and stores a unique, strong password for each of the websites where you need log-in credentials. You can do that yourself if you have a savant-like memory for numbers, but in all likelihood you don’t. Then, you just need to remember one, excellent password in order to access the service. Yes, you may ask, but what if the password manager gets hacked? Not to worry, says Chris Soghoian. “Password managers encrypt their data, so these services are safe. And, ultimately, in 2015 it’s not a good idea to use the same password for more than one website. That effectively means that you have to outsource the task.”

1Password

As the name suggests, 1Password is a tool that acts as a vault for all your passwords, secured by a single password of your creation. Basically, using a browser extension (available for Safari, Firefox, Chrome, and Opera), app, or smartphone app, you can open your vault with your master password and have instant access to all the passwords you’ve created, on any device you happen to be using.

In short, 1Password is the best app for managing your passwords because it does the best job of taking hold of our slippery digital identity, all the myriad digital bits of ourselves we use to prove who we are, and helps ease the friction of our travels through the digital world.

Every time a new version of 1Password comes out, I feel like repeating myself: if you’re serious about your secure data and web logins, you need 1Password. While it’s a great thing that Apple will be providing native options for increased password security and form-filling with iCloud Keychain, my recommendation still goes to 1Password if you’re looking for a dedicated app with more and better options aimed at managing your passwords, login details, credit card information, software licenses, and more. iCloud Keychain is meant for Safari, whereas 1Password is system-wide, powered by great customizable menus with keyboard shortcuts, and goes beyond web logins to let you encrypt and protect just about anything. I can’t work without 1Password.

LastPass

Another good password manager is LastPass, which works basically the same way 1Password does, but with a few less bells and whistles (although LastPass has been making huge strides), and a cheaper price (there’s a free option!).

Storing all of your passwords in a single, secure password manager means you can use a different, strong password for every site, without worrying that you’ll forget. It also means that a successful attack on your password stash could give a hacker access to every one of your secure sites. If that thought worries you, the free LastPass 3.0 is just what you need. Your data is stored online in encrypted form that even the company can’t read, and it’s encrypted going to and from your PCs. You can protect your LastPass data with more different kinds of two-factor authentication than any other password manager I’ve encountered.

Dashlane

Dashlane is similar in many ways to the other password managers on the market (if you want details, David Pogue wrote a very positive review in the New York Times, as did The Next Web in late 2014), but a new feature dropped in December that makes it extremely enticing. Here’s the description from the Verge:

Dashlane, the subscription-based password management service, is introducing a feature today that ought to become standard in every product like it: the ability to change all your passwords with a single click, including accounts with two-factor authentication enabled. The feature will work with about 75 major websites at launch, including Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, PayPal, Pinterest, and Twitter.

Password Changer, as the feature is called, is made possible by Dashlane’s acquisition of PassOmatic, a New York startup that developed the core technology. For now, it works on desktop versions of Dashlane for PC and Mac, though the company is working on a mobile version. Dashlane now includes a big green “change all passwords” button; click it, and it will replace your existing passwords with ones that are unique and randomly generated. If you have two-factor authentication enabled, a pop-up will ask you for a code or for the answer to a security question.

Safari Passwords

If you want to avoid the master password thing and just want a simple password storage system, the Safari Password Manager is a pretty nice tool. Basically, when you’re setting up an account online, Safari can auto-generate and save a secure password that will sync via iCloud Keychain for you to use on any device. It’s incredibly easy, but for some, it might be too easy. Here’s a specific pain point, from the pro-1Password Sweet Setup article above:

Different people also have different levels of comfort with iCloud Keychain. I, for one, don’t actually love the frictionless experience. I want to be intentional about how I use my passwords and my credit card information, and I like how 1Password makes me conscious of when I’m using those things. I also like how I have more control over access to my information on my devices. I can require a login to 1Password after not using it for even a few minutes. I also like that if my daughter is using my iPad, she can’t easily hop over to Zappos and buy herself a new pair of shoes with my credit card.

Use 2FA for an extra layer of protection

In principle, making your online self more secure seems like a no-brainer. Of course you don’t want to get hacked. Of course you don’t want your identity to be stolen. But at what length are you willing to go to ensure your safety?

One easy (and totally free) step we recommend you take for every platform that supports it is two-factor authentication (2FA). Stripping technical jargon, 2FA makes it so that in order to login to your account, you have to type in a code that’s only accessible on your phone. So if Hacker X tries to access your account, they’ll need the code sitting on your phone to get through.

It’s something we think is really important, so here’s a quick look at how to set it up, and what using it looks like:

The setup

Under “Two-step verification” type in your phone number and country code, then download the Authy app for iOS or Android (an SMS text option is available if you’re on an unsupported platform).

Using 2FA

Now that you’re all setup, your login will look like this:

Just open up your Authy app (or SMS text) and type in the code provided—and that’s it. You’ve quickly—and painlessly—added a second level of security to your iwantmyname account.

But will this get annoying?

The million dollar question. Yes, adding 2FA will make logging into your iwantmyname account a touch more cumbersome, but we’re not a Bitcoin platform you’re logging into every day. If you’re like me, you probably only mess with your account once a month—or less. And at five seconds per login (the Authy codes expires every 20 seconds, so even if you’re slow, it can only take that long), you’re only looking at losing a few seconds of your life a month.

In ye olde days (early 2013), most of the hard thinking that went into choosing a domain name went to the part before the dot. But now, with hundreds of new gTLDs available to the public, the actual name of your site might be the easy part. How do you choose between all the options? Do you go with .COM? .CO? Your local ccTLD? A descriptive word that aligns with your brand? Maybe .PIZZA (pizza goes with everything!)?

Before you spontaneously combust, let’s go through your options and add some notes from the smart people writing about the subject on the web.

.COM, the big Kahuna

I’m not a mind reader, but my guess is that you’re here to have someone like me tell you it’s ok to get something other than a .COM. So, sure, you certainly can run a successful business using any TLD. But for many people, .COM is the internet, especially if you live in the US. And it goes beyond simple. familiarity.

Take John Smith, a hypothetical 49-year-old insurance adjuster in Columbus, Ohio (in the US). On a given day, he browses through his typical sites: cnn.com, espn.com, facebook.com, and his work website, then he checks his email through Apple Mail which was set up for him at the Apple Store when he got his computer. The only thing he’ll come across that doesn’t seem safe is the spam that sometimes makes it to his inbox. And all that spam usually has one thing in common—garbledygook. The text is sometimes in a foreign language, or at best, a broken attempt at his primary language. The email address probably has hyphens and numbers. And the links (if there is a link) often have misspellings and unfamiliar TLDs.

So now imagine marketing your brand to John Smith. You could have a clean site with a clear business plan, but your non-.COM instantly registers as something out of the ordinary. Something potentially unsafe. And because John has been trained at his office for the last two decades to avoid anything remotely unfamiliar on the web (people are deathly afraid of getting hacked), he might not click.

With that said, people do gradually adapt to change. 15 years ago, buying something online with a credit card seemed like science fiction, and now we all have so many monthly subscriptions we can’t even keep up. What seems weird and dangerous today could be the societal norm by the end of the year, and everyone knows it.

Beware spam indicators

As stated about, if your website looks like it could be spam, that’s not a good thing. Here’s what Moz, the popular SEO site, says:

For best ranking results, avoid uncommon top-level domains (TLDs). Like hyphens, TLDs such as .info, .cc, .ws, and .name are spam indicators.

In addition to that short list, the new gTLDs have created so many new outlets for spammers to exploit (although it looks like the new gTLDs are still less commonly used than discount/free ccTLDs). My recommendation would be to avoid unnecessarily generic TLDs, like .COMPANY, .COUNTRY, and .WEBSITE. This isn’t a set rule though—as the .COM namespace gets more crowded, people will have to gravitate somewhere. My guess is that they’ll gravitate towards the more specific options, but who knows.

Before you register a domain, I’d recommend doing a little search to see if the TLD you’re looking at is appearing on email block lists (like this one I found while searching for “which tlds are spam indicators”). If you start noticing trends, that could be a bad sign.

Local ccTLDs and gTLDs can be good for business

By design, the internet is a global marketplace. No matter where your website is being hosted, anyone in the world can check out what you’re offering. But in many instances, people and businesses don’t need a global reach. Restaurants, regional banks, local politicians—these people and places are focused locally, and can often benefit from local TLDs.

Important in international SEO, ccTLDs are the single strongest way to show search engines and users where the site originates. This means that, all things being equal, example.fr will likely rank better in a French user’s SERP than example.us or example.com

Note that Google Webmaster Tools will not let you geotarget a ccTLD because it is, by definition, already geotargeted.

Worrying about SEO might be a few steps beyond where your mind is, but thinking about where you’ll appear in search results early is the best way to make sure you’ll rank well later on. Let’s put it in human terms.

Say you have a restaurant named MUCH MEAT (all caps for emphasis) in Canada, but somewhere in the US there’s a slightly more popular restaurant with a very similar name using the .COM. Because of their popularity, their domain name would likely show up before yours in search results…unless you’re using the .CA ccTLD, which would give you a slight advantage when people are searching for you in Canada (although you can target generic TLDs like .COM to specific places, too…it’s just an extra step). Basically, if you’re not an international company, your local ccTLD is a wonderful option.

(…Unless you live in the US. If you travel to just about any country on the planet, you’ll see tons of signs with ccTLDs. In Wellington, signs with .NZ and .CO.NZ might outnumber .COMs—but in the US, people don’t use .US at all. It’s just one of those quirks.)

The other advantage to using your local ccTLD is that the namespace is much less crowded than .COM. This chart shows 50.8% of all websites use .COM, while most other TLDs account for less than 0.1%. That’s a big popularity gap, which likely means prime names are still up for grabs.

And if the name you want is taken in your local ccTLD namespace, there are a bunch of new TLDs coming out for specific cities. .BERLIN, .PARIS, .LONDON, .NYC—all are currently available, and their relative newness likely means you’ll be able to find the domain you’re looking for. Plus, if you’re only targeting people from the city you’re in, you’re looking at a nice potential SEO bump for being hyperlocal (although Google is currently treating city extensions as standard gTLDs).

When going local goes wrong

There are a few instances where trying to go local doesn’t actually mean the internet thinks you’re local. Here are a few hypotheticals.

The common initials for the state of Delaware are DE, but .DE is the ccTLD for Germany. Your customers might think it’s cool, but Google’s never going to geotarget you correctly.

Like Delaware, Sussex in England uses SX as their abbreviation, but .SX is the ccTLD for Sint Maarten.

The best rule to follow is to know what your TLD stands for before you register it (if it’s a ccTLD that Google considers generic, you’re fine).

.IO and the TLDs for tech

It all started with domain hacks. As .COM got more and more crowded, the rapidly growing startup scene had to go somewhere, but the where wasn’t so obvious—until the ever-so-creative founders started blending their company names and their domain names together. So started a trend where every new startup ended with “ly” while using the .LY ccTLD (here’s a great Pinterest board, aptly named “Names That End in -ly”).

But with all the new gTLDs available today, startups and tech sites have more options than ever. .SOFTWARE, .TECHNOLOGY, .DIGITAL, .CODES, .CONSULTING, .BUILD—the list goes on and on and on. And my guess is that, like the rise of .LY and .IO, it’s only going to take a few big startups to start using the new gTLDs to get the whole train moving.

Are some TLDs better for reaching an international audience?

If you’re in the process of starting a new website and want to go with a shorter domain extension than any of the new gTLDs (or .COM), there are a few nice options. As stated above, Google treats .ad, .as, .bz, .cc, .cd, .co, .dj, .fm, .io, .la, .me, .ms, .nu, .sc, .sr, .su, .tv, .tk, .ws, and .eu as generic, meaning you can set a geographic target through Google Webmaster Tools, e.g. use a .co domain and be listed in search results in the United States, Canada or France although it is actually Colombia’s top-level domain. The same is true if you don’t want to target a specific country, i.e. have a .me domain for your personal online profile.

But which ones of these so-called gccTLDs (generic country code top-level domains) are the most popular and more likely to be recognized by visitors?Let’s take a look at Verisign’s latest domain industry brief:

Some ccTLDs, including .tk, .co, .me and .tv are frequently used by registrants and treated by search engines as gTLDs. This chart ranks the zone size of both gTLDs and ccTLDs marketed as gTLDs, as of Dec. 31, 2014, with that classification taken into account. The top 10 largest gTLDs and ccTLDs marketed as gTLDs by zone size were .com, .tk, .net, .org, .info, .biz, .co, .mobi, .me and .tv, as of Dec. 31, 2014, which account for 180.6 million domain name registrations, or 62.8 percent of the total global domain name registrations.

So we have .TK, .CO, .ME, and .TV as the most popular gccTLDs in that list. Not surprising, except .TK, which offers free domains—but with certain usage restrictions.

Other popular ones you may have seen are .IO for tech sites (which is still on the rise), .FM for music websites, .CC, and .WS for general use, as well as .NU (popular in Scandinavian countries).

Lesser known gccTLDs, but often registered for domain hacks because they don’t require any special documentation or local address in the country, are the .LA, .MS, .SC, .AS, and .BZ suffixes.

That leaves us with the remaining geo-targetable domain extensions from Google’s list: .AD, .CD, .DJ, .SR, and .SU. Unfortunately, we don’t carry these domains because they’re not easy to purchase and maintain, so you’d have to choose another registrar (our friends at Domainr may be able to help with that.)

Is it ok to use a new gTLD?

This is the biggest question of the day. As I stated at the beginning of this post, for many people, .COM is the internet, and that’s a hard nut to crack. So when the new gTLDs launched, many thought the assumed SEO bump would kickstart the system. But not so fast. Here’s a short post from Matt Cutts:

I read a post by someone offering new top-level domain (TLDs). They made this claim: “Will a new TLD web address automatically be favoured by Google over a .com equivalent? Quite simply, yes it will.”

Sorry, but that’s just not true, and as an engineer in the search quality team at Google, I feel the need to debunk this misconception. Google has a lot of experience in returning relevant web pages, regardless of the top-level domain (TLD). Google will attempt to rank new TLDs appropriately, but I don’t expect a new TLD to get any kind of initial preference over .com, and I wouldn’t bet on that happening in the long-term either. If you want to register an entirely new TLD for other reasons, that’s your choice, but you shouldn’t register a TLD in the mistaken belief that you’ll get some sort of boost in search engine rankings.﻿

So aside from being potentially confusing and not providing any sort of built-in SEO advantage, the reason I (and others) like the new gTLDs so much is because they just make sense. Here’s a good bit by Karn Jajoo for The Next Web:

A new TLD is often just a natural fit: take the example of ‘Lily’, the world’s first self-flying camera drone. ‘Lily’ could refer to the flowering plant, a common first name, or a small town, and its .com is registered by Lily Transportation Corp. Therefore, the Menlo Park robotics startup behind this drone used a simple, elegant domain to disambiguate its product – lily.camera.

Ever heard of the case of Nissan computer vs. Nissan motors? Uzi Nissan, a reseller of computer hardware and peripherals, registered Nissan.com on June 4, 1994.

Five years later, the Nissan Motor Corporation (which was called Datsun in the late 1970s) filed a $10 million lawsuit against Nissan Computer claiming cyber-squatting, trademark infringement and trademark dilution.

Perhaps if new TLDs had existed back then, Nissan.computer and Nissan.auto would have solved this contention without the lengthy legal dispute that has allegedly already cost Mr. Uzi $2.2 million in legal fees.

In addition to providing endless new namespaces for people to register short, memorable domain names, the new gTLDs act as a natural category structure for the web. In a perfect world where people like myself didn’t register .PIZZA domains for everything, you could theoretically know what the site you’re about to click on is all about, just from its TLD. And that’s cool.

Does your TLD really matter?

For someone like Michael Heyward, who co-founded anonymous social networking app Whisper in 2012, as a mobile first company, he says, there was not an ounce of trepidation at not having the Whisper.com domain name. (Whisper.com itself is a junk address, filled with spam links.)

Heyward says that 99 percent of Whisper’s exposure comes from its app. The company has a Whisper.sh landing page, to showcase popular posts from the app and publish legal and company information.

In 2014, Americans spend more time in apps than they do using the Internet on desktop. With social media sites becoming a greater engine for content discovery, new sites such as Quartz are popping up that don’t really even have an official homepage.

Think about that. For the foreseeable future, we’ll all need domain names to run our platforms and blogs, but discovery is changing fast. Really fast. On a given day, almost all the content I personally read online comes from links on content aggregators like Techmeme and Hacker News, or social platforms like Facebook and Twitter. And because I trust the sources I’m finding sites and articles with, the domain itself doesn’t matter. It could be “ten words long dot anything” and I likely wouldn’t know the difference.

Putting on my future hat, my advice would be to find the TLD that you’re most comfortable with and go with it. .COM, .IO, .LIMO—no matter what it is, if you commit to it, you’ll probably be fine.

Questions? Comments?

If you have a product to sell and an ounce of sticktoitiveness, the barrier for entry into the world of online sales is smaller than ever. Just pick a platform, select and tweak a template, take some product shots, and you’re up and running. But don’t let the bevy of simplified platforms make you lazy, there are plenty of decisions you still need to make to stand out from the crowd.

Let’s go through, step-by-step, the important things you need to cover:

Does my domain name matter?

Company naming is one of the hardest things anyone creating a website will have to do. Not because naming things is inherently hard (there really isn’t a wrong choice), but because the name is the single hardest thing to change in the future.

Just think about it. In 10 years, assuming your new shopping site becomes a success, your website will probably change once or twice (or more), your logo might go through countless small tweaks and revisions, and your brand tone could be completely reworked, but your name sticks. It’s on the tips of your customers’ tongues; it’s on all your social handles, your email addresses, your documentation. It’s hard to change a name (but it can be done).

In addition to your name, the internet adds a second layer of naming difficulty—the TLD (the part after the dot, like COM in .COM). The most popular TLD today is .COM, but finding a good, memorable name in the .COM namespace can be like finding a needle in a haystack.

Today, many brands are looking outside the .COM sphere. Local ccTLDs (like New Zealand’s .NZ and Canada’s .CA) are good for local businesses, but not so good for international shopping. Some ccTLDs are thought of as generic now, though, like .IO, which stands for Indian Ocean Territories, but is now a trendy .COM alternative used by tech startups. .CO, for Columbia, is another very popular ccTLD being used by businesses all over the world. Then again, there are the new gTLDs like .SITE, .CLUB, and .FASHION that are very specific to certain industries and ideas, but are still unknown to much of the public (new can be good, but may lead to some confusion depending on the audience).

There are a ton of articles on the web about the plusses and minuses of using the new gTLDs, but here’s a good one from Annalisa Roger, CircleID:

The world’s largest advertising agencies and the most cutting edge businesses, as well as the world’s leading brands, serve their customers by locating themselves in the minds of people with informative descriptors. Marketing with photos and taglines is effective, but being able to also do this with diverse new Top Level Domain name extensions is new. Staking out new Internet property with a new gTLD is akin to joining a community, an industry market sector, or a geographically or otherwise focused audience for your business.

For new gTLDs that designate a community, the benefits to registrants are compounded. Community TLDs bring added values. Trust and loyalty come into play when brands align with the beliefs and goals of a targeted audience. Not all new gTLDs represent communities however, but those that do can offer brands a unique value proposition. The opportunity to co-brand with a community, provided the content is relevant, can lead to the valuable position of becoming a recognized member of the community.

A few brand naming exercises

Before we get too deep into which domain name you should choose, let’s make sure you have a brand name that will stand the test of time.

The best tip for starting the naming process is to come up with as many options as you possibly can. It can be a grind, and you’ll find names along the way you feel you can end the process with, but keep going. Professional naming companies come up with hundreds, even thousands, of names before they deliver the final selections to their clients. Just remember that options will provide inspiration for more options, and the process is what will give you the confidence to stick with your choice.

So first, set a goal. Say, by the end of the process, you want to have 500 naming options (it’ll take time, but long term solutions rarely get conjured up in a day). Instead of just coming up with 500 random names though, your best strategy will be dividing your effort into chunks.

For example, if your goal is 500 naming options, here’s process you could follow:

Write down 100 common words that pertain to your brand (real words can be brand names!)

From those 100 words, try combining some of them to get 100 more words

Now, get a little weird and invent 100 words

Get a Latin dictionary and come up with 100 words

Try combining the Latin words with some of your words above to get your final 100

From that list, come up with your top 10, then start looking for available domain names (if you’re aiming for a .COM, there’s a good chance some of your options will already be taken)

There are no rules to naming, so whatever your process is, as long as you stick with it, you’ll likely come up with something original and new. There are some things you should try to avoid though:

Don’t get caught up in trends. Brands that start with lowercase e’s and i’s and end in ly’s are always going to be seen as names from a very specific era. Shoot for timelessness.

Spelling is hard enough. Adding additional vowels to normal words for the sake of originality can be pretty tricky.

Avoid excessively long names unless you want to be the brand that ironically has an excessively long name.

Bad mouth shapes can be unexpectedly damaging. Some words, no matter who says them, force people into frowns and strange guttural noises. Be sure to pronounce your name a number of times before making a final decision.

Whatever you do, avoid bad connotations. If, hidden in your brand name, you accidentally sound out a hate group or a traditionally bad word, you have a problem.

What are some domain name best practices?

Now that you have some brand names in mind, it’s time to find your domain name. Instead of re-creating the wheel, Moz has a great guide to domain name SEO Best Practices. Here are their top tips:

Word Separators – Avoid hyphens. Hyphens detract from credibility and can act as a spam indicator.

Length – Avoid domain names longer than 15 characters. Short domain names are easier to remember, easier to share, and have a smaller chance of resulting in typos.

The best practice of all though (you should see this coming) is to get your domain name right here at iwantmyname. High five!

Which e-commerce platform is right for me?

With your domain name now set, your final big decision is to pick an platform to build your site on. There are a ton out there, but our Marketplace has 12 of the most popular platforms available, and they can be added to your iwantmyname domain with just a few clicks (no confusing DNS setups FTW!). Here’s an overview.

Big Cartel: Big Cartel is one of the biggest e-commerce platforms on the web, primarily focusing on designers, artists, bands and other creative folks. Most notably, Big Cartel has some great templates you can tweak (no code needed, but you can use your own CSS/HTML if you want), and a host of analytics tools to track your activity and growth.

Squarespace: As far as customizability goes, Squarespace is one of the most intuitive platforms on the web. With its simple “Layout Engine” editing interface, you can make your sites, blogs and stores look just how you want them to, and with an impressive list of third-party integrations, your shops can be more flexible than ever.

Shopify: Like the storefronts of yesteryear, the best way to catch a customer’s eye is to look clean and fresh. And with more than 100 themes in the Theme Store (including plenty of great responsive options), you should be covered here. Tack on a full-featured CMS, tons of third-party integrations and advanced marketing tools and you have yourself quite a platform.

Tictail: While Tictail may not have the full site capabilities of a platform like Squarespace (although it isn’t that far off), it may just be the easiest platform for setting up a store. It’s so easy in fact, that you can sign up with your Facebook and Twitter account, pick a template (CSS and HTML customization is available), set some basic information up in the dashboard, and launch.

BigCommerce: Bigcommerce is an impressive platform for a number of reasons, but mainly because of the number of tools it gives you to succeed. Aside from having an easy to use site creator, you’ll get a host of marketing tools, reporting and analytics panels, and integrations—the works.

Flying Cart: Big stores, small stores—Flying Cart can handle them all with workmanlike efficiency. Take control of your code or use a template, then use a mass of backend tools and services, like social integration, inventory tracking and custom domain usage to get the job done.

Goodsie: Like Big Cartel and a few of the other platforms on the list, Goodsie is a platform designed for small-to-medium sized stores. But unlike some of the others, Goodsie makes design customizations incredibly easy with a visual CSS interface. And with a number of polished themes to make your own, it’s a great platform for beginners.

Jimdo: 10 million sites created. Easy store creation. A well-made iOS app for mobile access. There’s a lot to like about Jimdo, the Hamburg-based platform created for simple site building in 2007, but perhaps the nicest feature is the ability to create and launch a bare-bones store for free.

LightCMS: Unlike most platforms with big (often bloated) content management tools, LightCMS gives you the freedom to edit content directly on your site. And with a host of built-in e-commerce tools, there might not be an easier platform to use for your shopping site needs.

Selz: Selz sells itself on being “incredibly simple for you to sell what you do and get paid.” It’s easy to use, is constantly being updated (beautiful themes are regularly added to the mix), and only charges per transaction, meaning there’s no monthly/annual site fee to contend with.

Storenvy: Storenvy thrives on providing a large Etsy-like storefront for all its sites to feature their wares. But don’t fret, Storenvy also lets you set up your own site, complete with custom CSS/HTML (or templates), easy inventory tracking, and up to 500 products for free.

SupaDupa: Geared primarily towards clothing designers, SupaDupa offers more than 45 professionally designed themes, and all the stability and security you’d want with a professional store. And there’s something refreshingly honest about SupaDupa’s mission statement, “We didn’t set out to build something for everyone, our job is not to appeal to the most people, it’s to create a place for the people who care about the things we care about, like beauty, truth and making things to love, with love.”

Virb: Instead of giving you the built-in tools needed to set up your own store, Virb teamed up with Big Cartel and Etsy to allow for easy store/product imports. And given Virb’s do-it-all functionality, we’d recommend giving them a look.

The paradox of choice struggle is real. In all reality, there’s probably not a wrong answer when choosing a platform—but some will definitely be better for you than others. When browsing the individual sites for these platforms, the biggest things to look for are:

price (don’t forget to figure in transaction fees)

style (make sure it looks good on mobile as well)

ease-of-use (free trials are your friend)

trajectory (pick a platform that’s thriving… ideally the one you choose will grow with you throughout your brand’s existence)

features (things like shipping tools, inventory trackers, and reporting systems will save you a lot of time as you grow)

The basics

When creating a custom email address, think of it the same way you would when creating a new website. First, pick an email platform to use, then install it to your custom domain. For example, if “The Dude”—fictional owner of theinternet.io—wanted to set up a custom email address, he would search through the email hosts in our Marketplace, then pick the one that suits him best. Each of them will allow him to email from thedude@theinternet.io, but each will also provide a slightly different set of features, a different webmail client, and a wide range of prices.

Custom email options

We have four custom email platform options in our Marketplace, all providing stable service and excellent customer support. Check each platform for updated prices (usually priced per user/mailbox).

Zoho Mail: For many users, Zoho Mail is a top choice because it’s free for up to 25 mailboxes. Free! It’s also easy to install, has a clean interface, delivers push mail and two-way sync, and never displays weird ads on your page.

Google Apps: Google Apps is likely the most common email host people are using these days—and for good reason. With Google Apps, you get the exact same email interface and benefits you get with a personal Gmail account, but with the added organizational benefits of Google Drive, Google Calendar, Google Sites, and more.

Fastmail.fm: Created by Opera Software—the company behind the Opera browser—Fastmail.fm is growing fast because of its dedication to reliability and security.

Rackspace Email: While Rackspace Email doesn’t provide all the bells and whistles of a platform like Google Apps, it does have one very nice feature—hosted Microsoft Exchange. For non-Exchange users, Rackspace also provides a nice webmail platform, 24x7 support, and multiple layers of spam and virus protection.

Email forwarding?

Unlike providers like Zoho Mail and Fastmail, Pobox specializes in email forwarding. So instead of attaching your email address to a service with a webmail system you’re not used to, Pobox lets you forward your new unique email address to an email platform (and address) you commonly use.

Email forwarding makes it possible for you to separate where you read your email from your email identity. Forwarding takes mail sent to one address, and redirects it to another, without the sender having to know.

Your email address, your identity, is how you keep in touch, what you use to access many websites… indeed, it’s how you’re known. Email forwarding lets you easily change where you read your mail, without getting a new address.

It breaks the tie between your mailbox and your address.

If your email provider introduces a new policy you dislike, you can move. If your ISP changes its name, your email address is unaffected. If a new service starts up that you’d love to try, you can.

If you’re interested in email forwarding, we thoroughly recommend this guide from Eric Mill (it even goes through the iwantmyname installation process).

Can't you get a free custom address with Google Apps?

Back in the day, Google Apps had a free tier that allowed people to set up free custom email addresses for up to ten users. It was awesome. But near the end of 2012, Google shut their free service down, forcing people to look for paid (gasp!) alternatives.

But there may still be a way to do it (if this workaround doesn’t work anymore, let us know and we’ll take it down). From Ian Macalinao:

It’s pretty much common knowledge that Gmail is awesome. It’s fast, connects seamlessly with the rest of your Google services such as Drive, has a cool app called Inbox, and is overall an extremely powerful email service. However, to use it with a custom domain, you need to purchase Google Apps for either $5 or $10/month, which for casual users is a bit unnecessary. On top of that, you don’t even get all of the features a personal account gets, e.g. Inbox.

However, there’s a free way to use your Gmail account with a custom domain: Mailgun.

It only works for up to 10,000 emails a month (which seems like a lot) and is definitely developer-centric, but… it’s free!

Can't you get a free custom address with Microsoft?

Like the free custom email deal with Google Apps, Microsoft used to offer a service that allowed users to attach their custom domains to free Hotmail and Outlook.com accounts. But in 2014, they shut it down to focus on their paid offerings.

The move is disappointing, but not surprising. The fact that the Windows Live Admin Center continued to use the old Windows Live branding and was never updated with the modern design of Outlook.com was probably the biggest clue. In addition, the service has always been extremely limited, with administrators only able to add or delete addresses. And the relatively recent addition of a prominent Microsoft Office 365 link under the Sign In button was telling as well.

What should go before the @??

Once you get your custom email address set up, your next task is to create individual email addresses (the part before the @). Fortunately (or unfortunately, if you’re bad at making decisions), the possibilities are endless. You can use your first name, your last name, some combination of the two, generic words like “owner” or “support”, nicknames like “bossman” or “lordofemail”, or any other name you can think of.

But before you start, take a minute to think about the future. First, you’ll probably want to make specific email accounts for individual people. Here are two potential landmines:

firstname@: You’ve started your brand, now you want your email to be personable, yet professional. So you go with amy@yourbrand.com. When your brand is small, it’s fine, but what happens when you hire another Amy? Does that Amy get an email address using her last name (which would break your naming consistency)? Her initials?

lastname@: Same issue as firstname@.

If you want to be safe, go with something like firstnamelastname@, firstname.lastname@, firstnamelastinitial@, or firstinitiallastname@. Sure, there will always be exceptions to the rule (if two people have the exact same name, maybe you can force them into a Hunger Games-type situation), but doing what you can to avoid future duplication will make your life much easier later.

After everyone has an individual account, be sure to create some general accounts for different roles. For example, it’s better to create a press@ account than to just have that email go to a specific person (what happens if that person leaves or takes on a new role within the company?). Don’t go overboard though—having too many email accounts can get confusing for everyone.

Questions? Comments?

Thousands upon thousands of websites are created every day. New brands. New blogs. Social platforms, online portfolios, e-commerce sites. And really, there’s very little in common amongst the sites. Some will be responsive, some will have traditional layouts, some will have non-traditional layouts—but nearly all of them will have a logo.

The logo. It’s the first thing people see when they visit your site, but it’s often the last thing people think about when starting out. So let’s unlock some of the mystery behind the logo building process and figure out how you can get a logo you’ll be proud of.

Why a logo is important

To understand what a logo is, we first must understand what the main purpose of logos is. The design process must aim to make the logo immediately recognizable, inspiring trust, admiration, loyalty and an implied superiority. The logo is one aspect of a company’s commercial brand or economic entity, and its shapes, colors, fonts, and images usually are strikingly different from other logo in the same market niche. Logos are used to identify.

Paul Rand, one of the world’s greatest designers states that “a logo is a flag, a signature, an escutcheon, a street sign. A logo does not sell (directly), it identifies. A logo is rarely a description of a business. A logo derives meaning from the quality of the thing it symbolizes, not the other way around.”

Let’s unpack that a bit. The logo, as stated above, is your brand’s signature. That brand could be you and your personal thoughts (a personal blog), a collection of many thoughts (a company website or group blog), or just a digital space for your physical entity (like a menu/information site for a restaurant)—no matter what it is, it’s your logo that will be front and center on your site (or maybe in the top left). And as Paul Rand says, your logo doesn’t have to be a description of your business—it doesn’t have to tell an epic at first glance—but it should give some meaning to what you’re up to. Does your logo inspire motion? Whimsy? A rigid but formidable structure? Or the worst, a trend that died off years ago?

These things matter. Maybe not as much as the quality of whatever you’re building, but people do notice.

How a logo fits into your branding

When a logo matters most is when it comes to branding, and branding is everywhere these days. Just think about it—instead of just seeing logos on physical goods and locations, then on the occasional website, you now see logos on Twitter handles, Facebook posts, Instagram shots, app icons, and emails. Branding is all over the internet, and if your logo doesn’t look good in any space, on any size, your brand is probably missing the mark (and giving your discerning customers a bad taste in their mouths).

Here’s a little nugget from someone who was consistently ahead of the curve.

Every once in a while a company has a logo that’s a little jewel, a symbol, that can be used independently of the logotype. At Apple we had such a symbol, as a matter of fact, at Apple, the symbol was the name of the company. It was a thing that had the same name as the company—an apple. Our challenge was that it usually takes ten years and a hundred million dollars to associate a symbol with the name of the company. Our challenge was, how can we have a little jewel that we could use without the name to put on the product without spending ten years and a hundred million dollars to make that association in a customer’s mind. And Paul solved that by making a little jewel that contained in it the name of the company. And I think he really approached it as a problem that needed to be solved, rather than an artistic challenge for his own sake.

Today, that little jewel is so critical—it’s what’s going to fit in your square Twitter profile pic. It’s what’s going to fit cleanly on a mobile site without hogging too much screen real estate. And if you happen to see that logo in the wild, it’s what’s going to give your potential customers an instant reminder of what you’re all about.

When tackling a branding project, Mathews differentiates between the “true and new.” She says a logo needs to be “true,” in the sense that it should not be fundamentally tied to a trend, the “new.” The trendiness is more appropriate in supporting elements of branding, like store experiences or website interfaces. That said, a logo should be fundamentally sound but also be adaptable to the ways it will be presented.

“Logos used to have to be recognizable down to the size that they would be represented on a business card. Now they have to work at much smaller sizes, because they’ll be seen on mobile screens,” Mathews said. That’s actually the reason why so many logos have become “flatter,” in the sense that they’ve been stripped of techniques like shadowing that add a dimension of depth or movement.

What it takes to design a logo

With all that adaptability in mind, it’s important to know what it takes to create a logo that works. Aaron Draplin, one of the most well-known logo designers today, made a great video on his process, and a bit of the thinking that goes behind logo creation.

It’s one thing to design that logo, and just have it floating on this PDF, and you’re sort of drunk on white space and negative space and just floating, but rarely will you see it that way. The way you see it will be on some stupid little Instagram in the corner, or on a guy’s business card, or embroidered on his sweatshirt or something.

This was a rush job from one of the better designers out there, but if you want a good logo, it’s probably going to take a bit of time, some honest critical thinking, and possibly a bit of money. (In short, you should be wary of any company offering you a quick logo for cheap. You might end up getting something wonderful, but most likely you’re going to get something that doesn’t capture the soul of your brand, and will probably look dated in a couple of years.)

Logo options for different budgets

In 2001, oil giant BP commissioned creative agency Landor Associates, advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather and the PR consultants Ogilvy PR to replace their “Green Shield” logo with the current Helios symbol and create a surrounding identity and campaign. Designed in a green and yellow sunflower pattern, the logo represents energy in its many forms and comes with the tagline “Beyond Petroleum”. The cost of this re-branding procedure? A mere $211 million USD…

On the flipside, Google went a different route:

Despite arguably being the most recognisable logo in the Western world, the Google logo cost the Internet company exactly $0 to create. It was actually designed in 1998 by co-founder Sergey Brin and, although it’s obviously been tuned up a little since then, the main elements still remain.

Good logos can come from anywhere, and can be made by anyone. Expectations are important though. While Google did indeed create an iconic logo on the cheap, the company started in the early days of the internet when sites typically looked terrible. User expectations of website designs were initially quite low, and the Google logo has been polished, repolished, and probably repolished again between then and now to make up for it. If you’re going to go the route of creating your own logo or going with something inexpensive, don’t get stuck. Your brand is always evolving, and your logo can, and should, evolve with it (unless you strike gold with a cheap logo like Nike or Coca-Cola).

Here are a few directions you could go when looking to get a logo built:

Have some design skills? Pull up Adobe Illustrator, or your app of choice, and start creating. (You can also use free tools like Squarespace’s logo creator, but know that your options will be limited.)

Know a designer? Figure out a budget and ask if they’ll help you out. (A budget is important, even if it’s small… if you value someone’s work, you should pay them.)

Try a site like 99designs or Fiverr. If anything, getting an inexpensive logo made will set you on the right track, giving you something you can evolve as your brand does.

Find a local branding shop. Anyone good will charge $100+/hr (rough estimate), but with a branding shop, you’ll get someone who will give your brand some real attention.

No matter what you get, there is one important thing to be mindful of. Be consistent. Sure, you can make changes to your logo over time, but you need to be consistent with it across the board. Your site logo needs to pair with your Twitter logo, and your font can’t be Helvetica in one place, and then Arial on another.

I knew he probably didn’t have much of a budget to hire me (or anyone else) to design a logo from scratch so I did the best I could and offered him some free advice. I told him NOT to do what the previous owners of Dexter’s did. Dexter’s had a terrible brand consistency problem. Their front sign, side sign, business cards and website all displayed a different style of what might be called Dexter’s logo. Their card had a silhouette of a coffee mug with the handle turned into a Helvetica D with the rest of the word following in Helvetica. It wasn’t great, but not too terrible either. It could have been an effective logo if they’d just had a sense of COMMITMENT to that single logo. Their front signage had their name in something similar to Baskerville, a serifed “classic” typeface. The sign on the side of the building was something different, and their website logo I believe was set in Times New Roman. Absolutely no consistency.

No matter what you go with, make sure you use your logo consistently. It matters.

What to look for when choosing from options

Unless you’re going with someone like Paul Rand, who famously only provided a single logo option to his clients, you’ll probably be presented with a few variations. How do you choose between them?

“It’s never love at first sight,” he says. “A good logo, a good trademark, gains meaning and power over time.”

Before you slide into melancholy, the key thing to know is that picking the right logo takes time. Just like when choosing a house, a car, or a pair of jeans, you have to put stock into all the options. You might love something immediately, but give every option some thought, and really try to see the value in everything you’re given. Subtlety can take time to digest.

My good friend Lee Newham taught me about five important design elements when it comes to brand identities. Iconic logos are:

Describable

Memorable

Effective without colour

Scalable i.e. work when just an inch in size

Relevant to the industry in question

Like most things in life, just know that there’s never everever going to be a perfect option. If you’re an observant human, you’ll probably be able to find fault in anything. But as Paul Rand said at the beginning “a logo derives meaning from the quality of the thing it symbolizes, not the other way around.” A great logo won’t make a bad brand good, and a bad logo can always be made better, as long as the brand can prop it up.

Be brave! Make a decision and stick with it (for a while at least)! And don’t stagnate. Stagnation is probably the worst thing for your brand.

Questions? Comments?

The main goal of this guide is to get you started on iwantmyname, assuming you have no background in domain registration or starting up a website. We’ll try to keep things as need-to-know as possible, so if you’re easily distracted, or just don’t like your intro guides seeming like college courses, you’re in the right place.

Registering your first domain name

When registering your first domain name, try to think of it as a house just waiting to be constructed. In your mind, you probably have a good idea what you want your house to look like, but first, you need to figure out where to put it. That’s where TLDs (top-level domain) come in. The TLD is the part of your domain name after the dot—COM is the TLD for iwantmyname.com.

So in this world of domain names, your name is the house, and the TLD, the part after the dot, is the city you want to build in. The most common TLD today is .COM, which a city unlike any other. It’s the most well known, which is great for memorability (and potentially, traffic), but it’s huge and crowded, so a lot of the “good” (short/memorable) property was taken long ago. On the flip side, there are hundreds of other TLDs to choose from—you just need to find the best option that aligns with your brand or interests.

gTLDs (generic top-level domains) – The basic definition of a gTLD is any domain extension that doesn’t represent a country or territory. .COM is a gTLD that stands for commercial. .NET stands for network. .ORG stands for organization. (Don’t get hung up on “original intent” though. You can use .NET, .ORG, .COM, or any of our other TLDs for any type of business you want you want.)

The new gTLDs (often called nTLDs, or new TLDs) – Just recently, the internet was flooded with hundreds of new gTLDs (like .PIZZA, .DESIGN, and .PHOTOS) in an effort to alleviate some of the overcrowding issues .COM is having. So now, instead of calling your catering company YOURBRANDcatering.COM, you could go with YOURBRAND.CATERING.

ccTLDs (country code top-level domains) – Unlike .COM, ccTLDs are assigned to countries. For example, New Zealand uses .NZ, Spain uses .ES, and Canada uses .CA. So if you’re running a restaurant in Belgium, you could use your local .BE ccTLD instead of the more global .COM, giving you a less crowded namespace to work with, and potentially a more local feel. You don’t necessarily have to be from the country to use its ccTLD either (we’ll let you know if there are any weird registration quirks involved)—.CO and .IO (Columbia and Indian Ocean Territories, respectively) are so commonly used, they’re often considered gTLDs.

Once you have an idea of the name you want, head over to iwantmyname.com and type the domain into the big search box in the middle of the page (then hit enter, or click the big button).

Next, you’ll see a long list of your domain with every TLD we offer. If the one you want is available, just click on it and it’ll appear in your cart on the right side of the screen (if it’s not, here’s the guide on what to do next). If that’s the only domain you want, next, click the button labeled Checkout—otherwise, feel free to search for and add other domains to your order.

On the next page, create your iwantmyname login information using your email address and a password (we recommend using a tool like 1Password for password management), then click Continue.

Now you’re on the checkout page, which is far more important than you think. It’s all self-explanatory, but it’s super important to use accurate contact information. And yes, that means your real address, phone number, email address, etc. Here’s a good article on why it’s necessary, and how you can protect your information the right way using WHOIS privacy.

Making sure your information is secure

You have your first domain name now, but before you do anything else, let’s secure your information—just to be safe.

Here’s a little checklist of things we recommend doing:

Make sure your password is strong

This probably isn’t the first time you’ve been told to create a strong password, but it’s always a good thing to hear (like eating your vegetables). Your password can be whatever you want, but our general suggestion is not to use anything that could easily be found through a simple internet search. So no family names, pet names, important dates, job titles, or hobbies you’ve written about. Randomness and length are key—we recommend using something like 1Password to make it easy.

To change your password, click Login & Security under Account in the top navigation and follow the instructions.

Use two-factor authentication

If you really want to be secure, we recommend using two-factor authentication (2FA). Our implementation through Authy forces you (or a potential hacker) to enter a randomly generated code after you enter your login information that is only viewable through the Authy app on your phone or laptop. The idea is that if your login information was compromised, the potential data thief would also have to have your phone (or computer, if you set it up that way) to complete the login process.

To add 2FA, click Login & Security under Account in the top navigation. Note that we don’t have Google Authenticator implemented at this time, but we may add additional 2FA options in the future.

Add WHOIS privacy

WHOIS privacy is a free service we offer to all TLDs that support it. In short, ICANN (the entity that maintains the gTLD namespaces) and each entity running the ccTLDs have policies in place on what information needs to be made available to the public on the WHOIS database. With our WHOIS privacy in place, your personal information that was required at registration gets replaced on the public database with our company information. So the spot that shows your address would instead show our company address. Pretty nifty!

To add WHOIS privacy to your domain name, click Domains in the top nav, then select the domain you want to add WHOIS privacy to, then click “enable privacy” (it’s in the Domain Owner row).

Putting your domain name to work

Now that you’ve registered your first domain and added all your privacy settings, it’s time to start actually using it. But before we get into how to set things up, let’s take a look at what kinds of easy things you can do with your domain:

Start a website – Probably the most common thing you can do with a domain is start a website. And these days, with amazing platforms like Squarespace, Big Cartel, and Tumblr, anyone can start a blog, e-commerce site, gallery page, online portfolio, forum, etc., etc. without knowing an ounce of code.

Get a custom email address – Ever see someone with an email address that doesn’t end in @gmail.com, @me.com, @hotmail.com, etc.? That was set up with a using a domain name like the one you just registered.

Shorten your links – When you post a link to Twitter (or some other social platforms), it’s automatically shortened to give you more characters to work with. If you want to brand that link shortening though (we’re using iwnt.me), you can get a short domain name and use it with a link shortening service like Bitly.

Host a podcast? Start a forum? – If you can think of it, there’s probably a platform or service out there to get you started.

No matter what you’re looking to accomplish, our recommendation is to start your search in our Marketplace.

Understanding the Marketplace

If you’ve ever messed with domain names in the past, you’ve probably come across a fairly acronym-heavy setup process with DNS record types like A, CNAME, MX, etc. What we’ve done is created a system that helps you avoid needing to deal with all that—allowing you to choose platforms like Squarespace and Tumblr, then add them to your domain in a click (all the work is done for you in the background).

The most important thing to remember here is that all the platforms in our Marketplace are hosted platforms, meaning you can use them without needing to worry about hosting space on the side. Just add the platform, sign up for it on their end, and you’re good to go.

Adding a platform from the Marketplace

Occasionally you’ll run into some additional information needed on platform setups (here’s the Squarespace installation guide, for example), but most platforms are very straightforward. Here’s the process for Tumblr, as an example:

Pick a platform you want to add, then click Add Tumblr on the next page.

Hit the green Install Tumblr button.

Note that you still need to sign up for your desired platform on their end, and add your new domain name in their custom domain name menu (most platforms will have their own guide to help you along). Note that some platforms take a bit of time to detect new domain settings, so now might be a good time to walk the dog.

Useful tip – if your domain was transferred to iwantmyname from a different registrar, you’ll probably have to change your nameservers to iwantmyname (our instant setups won’t work otherwise). To set that up, click Manage DNS in the dropdown under Setup in the top nav, then click Update Nameservers, then choose iwantmyname in the dropdown menu. And don’t forget to click the Update Nameservers button!

Adding a platform that isn’t in the Marketplace

If the blog, e-commerce, portfolio, etc., etc. platform you’re looking to use isn’t in our Marketplace, you can add DNS records manually by clicking Manage DNS in the dropdown under Setup in the top nav, then click Edit DNS Records, then add your records one-by-one. Most platforms will have setup guides for a number of different registrars, so hopefully a custom iwantmyname setup guide will be on the list, but if not, just follow their general custom domain instructions and you should be fine (we’re always happy to help as well).

Adding a platform that requires your own hosting

If you want to use a platform like Wordpress.org that requires you to find your own server space for your site to live on (for the brave, or more advanced users), you’ll have to first figure out who you want to be your host. There are hundreds of hosting companies out there, but [we usually recommend Bluehost for basic users and Digital Ocean for developers.

Once you’ve purchased some hosting space, all you have to do on our end is point your domain’s Nameservers to that service. For example, if you’re using Bluehost, click Manage DNS in the dropdown under Setup in the top nav, then click Update Nameservers, then choose Bluehost in the dropdown menu. After that, all the settings to install your platform will be through your host (and they’ll usually have their own setup guides).

Before we wrap this up, there are a few things we want you to remember (this is your domain credo, of sorts):

It’s very hard to permanently mess things up, and changes made accidentally can be removed or restored. As long as you use correct contact information, keep your billing info up-to-date, and check your email semi-regularly for important updates, you’re going to be alright.

Even if you’ve set everything up perfectly, sometimes it takes time for things to work their way through the internet (and nothing can speed it up). Patience is key.

Questions? Comments?

Parental leave is an important topic and one that we will hear more about because there is an over-arching societal conversation starting to happen. So we began having a look around at what other companies offer and found a list of tech companies and their parental leave policies which was a good start, but not enough.

As an international team with four different nationalities and spread across as many countries (New Zealand, Germany, Canada and the US), we wanted to find something that works for everyone. We were also aiming at offering an equal option for men who should have the opportunity to negotiate some time away from work to be with their new children and to support the mother or same-sex partner. And would you believe there is still no parental leave in the US, even for most mothers?

But not everyone might have plans to have kids in the future—whatever the reason may be. How can we accommodate them?

For many people, maintaining online privacy is understandably very important. Fortunately, to that end, WHOIS privacy is available for many types of domains (see our full list here).

Enabling WHOIS privacy is a way to mask or hide your personal contact information as the domain registrant, so it’s not visible in WHOIS lookups. Adding it to an iwantmyname domain name is easy (as long as your domain extension supports it)—in your dashboard, just click on the domain name, then click on “enable privacy” to begin.

However, not everyone knows about the availability of WHOIS privacy, and we’ve seen many instances where people have used altered or fake contact information when registering their domains as a step to ensure their privacy. While we understand the motivation to do this, let’s clear up why it isn’t such a good idea.

The difference between a gTLD and a ccTLD

The big thing to understand is that there are two main categories of domains. First, you have your gTLDs (generic top-level domains), which include “classics” like .COM and the new extensions like .PHOTOS or .PIZZA. These domains are under the control of ICANN, meaning they all follow the same policies and rules about how they are registered, how much they cost, how they are renewed, and information required of registrants.

The other domain category is ccTLDs (country code top-level domains). These are all the ones that end with two letters, referencing actual geographical places in the world, e.g. .CA for Canada, .IO for Indian Ocean, etc. Unlike the gTLDs with ICANN, ccTLDs are not all under the control of one organization. Each ccTLD is governed by its own registry, managed by the country or geographical area (e.g. .CA domains are managed by CIRA, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority).

Because of this, each ccTLD has different policies and rules regarding registration, renewal, pricing, etc. Those registries can basically do what they want in this regard. This is why some offer WHOIS privacy (see the above-linked list), but many do not. This is also why a .IO domain costs $59 to register, or a .MY domain costs $149USD. The registry can set whatever price it chooses.

Requirements for information accuracy

For gTLDs, ICANN has requirements for registrant information accuracy, which must be adhered to, or the domain registrant/owner risks the domain being suspended or deleted. This is also the case for ccTLDs, but they have their own registries’ requirements, which may be more or less stringent than ICANN’s. For example, some registries require specific ID numbers for companies or individuals wanting to register a domain with their ccTLD. And some restrict who can register at all (e.g. you must be a resident of the European Union in some cases).

As is the case for gTLDs, ccTLD domains can be suspended or deleted if the registrant contact information is not accurate and up to date.

Don’t ignore WDRP notices

From time to time we hear from customers who have received a WDRP (WHOIS Data Reminder Policy) notice by email. Often they’re not sure what it’s for, or if it’s possibly a scam.

WDRP notices are legitimate, and it’s important to read them and to check your registration information to ensure that it’s up to date. You can do this in your iwantmyname account dashboard by clicking on your domain name, then clicking on “edit contacts” on the next page.

Editing gTLD contact information

For gTLDs, you’ll be able to update the domain contacts yourself and save the new settings at the bottom of the page. You can use the same contact name and information for all four (registrant/owner, admin, tech, and billing), or you can use different people or contact details (as long as it’s accurate).

It’s particularly important to be sure that the email address set for the registrant/owner and admin contacts are valid and that you can access email there, as important notifications about renewals, transfers, etc. are sent to them.

If you receive a WDRP notice, it is important that you follow the instructions and ensure that your information is up to date. Otherwise, ICANN is authorized to suspend or even delete your domain name, and you may not have any way to get it back. If you are concerned about your privacy, remember that adding WHOIS privacy will mask all of your personal details and contact information.

As a reminder, you can add WHOIS privacy for domain types that support it when you’re logged in to your iwantmyname account. In your dashboard, click on the domain name, then click on “enable privacy” to begin.

Editing ccTLD contact information

For ccTLDs, sometimes you can update the domain contacts yourself. Sometimes you can update all of the contacts except registrant/owner. And sometimes you can update all of the other contacts and parts of the registrant/owner contact.

It’s fairly common that the customer cannot make changes to the registrant/owner’s first/last name or company name themselves. This is because whatever person and/or company is listed as the registrant/owner contact is the legal owner of the domain. Those updates must be done at the administrative level.

For that reason, it’s important to ensure that the registrant contact, particularly, is accurate and up to date. Sometimes when you transfer a domain, it will still show the old registrar or hosting company’s contact information, especially if you had a privacy service turned on. You will need to update that after the transfer. (Use the “edit contacts” instructions listed above.)

The same goes for transferring a domain from one person or company to another. You will need to ensure that you update the domain contacts to your information, otherwise the domain still legally belongs to the person whose name is on it, even if you paid for it fair and square. (Domain ownership disputes tend to get very messy, often require legal consultation, and are slow to resolve.)

Some ccTLDs require more complicated administrative functions to update domain contacts. In those instances, customers need to contact us as we will need to take care of those functions for you. They are usually done in other systems connected to the registries. Sometimes these changes have an associated cost. Most commonly there is a cost associated when a specific ccTLD registry categorizes changing a domain’s registrant contact as an “owner change”.

If there are special requirements, processes, or costs required for updating a domain’s contact information, we will let you know beforehand. In certain cases, it can be fairly involved, requiring forms and other processes, but we will provide information for all steps, and take care of most of the heavy lifting for you.

Questions? Comments?

The internet’s governing body ICANN is thinking of another controversial move, after the introduction of an (email) address verification process that can make your website go dark. Just this time, it’s an attack on people’s privacy, and that’s something you shouldn’t take lightly.

Under the proposed new rules, Providers would be required to monitor your use of domain names and websites. Providers could be forced to terminate your privacy service and be required to publish your contact data in WHOIS. Likewise, Providers could be required to give your private contact details to anyone complaining that your website violates their trademark or copyright. None of these scenarios would require a court order, search warrant, or due process of any kind.

It’s important to emphasize that Providers do not want criminals to abuse these services to hide their online activities from law enforcement. But some of the proposed changes would treat all users equally, regardless of their intent. For millions of legitimate users, these services are no more suspicious than getting an unlisted telephone number.

It’s the same people who already thought you could prevent crime by requiring domains to be verified which only resulted in innocent people having their websites disabled. Nothing else.

And we will see exactly the same thing happening if these new whois privacy policies are introduced. People who absolutely need to remain private could have their contact details exposed by anyone—without helping to catch criminals.

Yes, I’m publishing this on Medium and not on my own domain name. Because it allows me to get my thoughts out of the system and share it with a wider audience until I‘ve made up my mind where and how to relaunch my personal web presence.

Why relaunch?

I’ve got my own domain name, and it feels like I’m not making the best use of it at the moment.

I never made the switch to English for personal long form writing since moving from Germany to Australia, and later to New Zealand. As a non-native English speaker, I often feel my writing isn’t good enough, and the following quote was a kick in the butt: “It is better to write not-well than to not write.”

We had plenty of discussions about personal sites and our individual voices on the web at work. Over the last few years, I’ve been writing quite a bit on the iwantmyname blog which is simply not me as a person, and I want to change this.